A big list of little incremental tips for ITSM success

1. 75+ tips for ITSM goodness
Barclay Rae

2. Selling your project and getting budget
 Clear measureable goals
 Business language - not IT/ITSM
 How will success be achieved and accepted?
 Beware too much cost/financial ambition
 You can’t ‘do ITIL’ in 20 days

3. Building a realistic plan
 Short term wins
 What can we do in 30/60 days
 Phasing & focus - reality and outcomes
 Get project management - focus on logistics and people
 Training alone won’t deliver organisational change

4. Getting business people interested
 Don't just talk to them - listen to them
 Ask them in their own terms - make them feel they are being asked
 Beg, coerce, bribe, start with friendly customers
 Involve them - not a lot of their time needed
 What are the benefits for them and the business as a whole
 ‘We tried this before’

5. Making SLAs work for you
 Start with Services…!
 Move from systems to service focus
 Simple language – not technical or legal jargon
 Realistic and sustainable
 Must be measurable
 ‘SLD’

6. Building a brilliant Service Desk
 Hire brilliant people
 Set the tone
 Clearly define the 1st/2nd/3rd level model
 Develop from personality and communications skills
 If Service and the Service Desk is important, invest in it
 Make it an aspirational place to work
 Generally first time fix is faster cheaper and better for customers

7. Service Desk – World Class (sample)
Customer Advocacy
• Customers are happy to recommend the service received
• They are enthusiastic about providing references or testimonials
Efficiency
• Efficiency and performance are constantly reviewed with actions
• Metrics are publicised and promoted across IT and customers alike
• The organisation continually looks at optimising cost with BAU
Emotional Intelligence
• All are empowered to act beyond their normal remit
• Proactive behaviour is encouraged and regularly demonstrated
• Issues are seen as opportunities for improvement
• Issues are tackled with teamwork, customer focus and professionalism

8. Making Problem Management work
 More about ownership + people than just a process
 Problem Management – part analyst, investigator, mostly project
manager
 Spyglass and whip
 Visibility helps – teams/crowds solve more problems
 What are your top 5 problems?
 Not necessarily just the (promoted + successful)
ex Service Desk Manager

9. Using the right people

10. Using the right people
 Think about the real requirements and outcomes from a role – do
they fit the jacket?
 Service needs people who show commitment, EiQ, empathy,
maturity, professionalism, doggedness, openness, confidence,
consistency
 If you hire based on people’s qualities then you don’t need so many
rules and processes
 If someone doesn’t fit or deliver, customers and service will be
affected

11. Producing appropriate documentation
 Since when did technical writers write by-lines for newspapers?
 In-depth Guardian/Times article vs. Sun/Mirror headline?
 No-one reads more than a page or a few lines
 Don’t confuse e.g. project documentation with project
updates + communiques

12. Cutting through the culture
 Management reporting lines need to be ignored or subverted
 ITSM is not a traditional IT development project
 People need to feel they are in an environment where they can (and
should) change
 ‘If you can’t change the people, change the people’ - true but you
need to create a clear and positive culture too…

13. Thank you for listening…
For more information:
bjr@barclayrae.com
@barclayrae
www.barclayrae.com
www.itsmtv.co.uk
13